The cold wave which followed the winter showers in mid-January destroyed most of the fragile vegetation in Sindh but helped the crop of Guava fruit greatly. It is said, " Guava needs cold more than the water ".

Guava is a small tropical tree (Psidium guajava) bearing a sweet and delicious pale yellow fruit with pink juicy flesh containing a fragrance and flavor of its own. It is concentrated only in one area of Larkana district of Sindh. As Kunri (Thar) is famous for the Red Chilies and Therhi (Khairpur district) is known for the Date crop, the area of Larkana is identified besides the Rice by this unique crop of Guava which is neither sown nor harvested anywhere else in Sindh other than this area of Larkana.

A variety of Guava is also grown in Malir area of Karachi but the Guava of Larkana surpasses it in fragrance and thus happens to be the craze of the market here and abroad. This fruit with its origin in Latin America, Kenya and India is being grown in Sindh with great success both in the terms of taste as well as profitability in business.

A passerby driving on Larkana - Sukkur road cannot escape the sight of the panoramic orchards with lush green trees grown in geometrical designs in soft soil of the area on immediate Right Bank of Indus. The Guava trees bear fruit twice in a year but its ideal season happens to be from November to March. During last season, hectic trade activity was witnessed here where trucks loaded with crates of the fruit proceeded to the north and south, the west and the east.

The other crop of Guava in June, July and August gets contaminated due to sizzling heat of summer in Larkana area and the growers usually destroy the fruit while in the trees. The growers of Guava, therefore, rely solely on a single crop of winter. The fruit produced from mid- January to mid-April is considered as the most timely.

The major chunk of the fruit is exported to the Middle Eastern countries while its demand is increasing locally in the province of Punjab and its cities such as Sadiqabad, Bahawalpur, Multan, Lahore, Dera Ghazi Khan, Liaqatpur and Khanpur etc. The fruit of Guava is also supplied to Karachi in bulk but owing to its delicate nature and vulnerability to the harsh climatic influences, it is damaged on great extent as there are no modern storage facilities as well as quick transportation system to supply the commodity to the market in time. It is usually after mid- January that the semi-ripe Guava is supplied to Karachi wherefrom it is export abroad. The growers earn more from that semi-ripe fruit than from the fully-grown Guava.

In seventies, some effort was made to create various incentives for the export of this crop and for that purpose the Mohenjodaro airport was expanded to provide landing facility for the PIA Boeing flights just to transport this unique commodity to the far off markets in Asia and Africa, Europe and America. But due to change of different governments, everything has been changing at least for the Guava trade and now this fruit is being sold locally at very nominal prices.

The density of the crop in Larkana could be understood from the fact that only from a single village known as Agani, with 1500 acres of Guava cultivation, 30 to 40 trucks are loaded daily for different markets. Each truck contains 600 crates with 20 kilogram of guava in each truck. The small - size truck carries 400 crates. In ideal season each crate with high quality fruit fetches about Rs. 600 to the grower. However, in 1998 the price of a guava crate did not exceed Rs. 300. The guava prices in 1999 remained almost the same while in the year 2000 the prices showed some upward trend to touch the figure of Rs. 500.

During bumper crop no one from the village remains unoccupied while even small children carry fruit in small straw baskets and settle down by the roadside for retail sale and thus manage their substance.

The growers of Guava, though flourishing certainly, are hard-pressed by the taxation system. The farmers are paying about Rs. 27 Lacs every month only to the Larkana District Council while the contractors are extracting exorbitant charges from them. There is no uniform system of the taxation; therefore the contractors are charging Rs. 6 instead of Rs. 3 (as per schedule) on each crate of Guava to be supplied to the market outside Larkana.

Larkana is remembered in the pages of history as the city of gardens. It was during the Kalhora dynasty that the gardens grew far and wide in this area more so because the local rulers had dug new canals known as 'Gha'ar'. No doubt the Lloyd Barrage at Sukkur commissioned in 1932 A.D revolutionized Sindh's agriculture, but the twin-menace of waterlogging and salinity became acute only after the construction of world's largest irrigation system in Sindh. It is also an indisputable fact that the British architects of the Sukkur barrage had strongly suggested to the local authorities to dig seepage canals parallel to the seven long canals of the barrage, but the follow-up works seldom took place in Sindh.

So, it was due to many such reasons that the waterlogging and salinity went on spreading widely in Sindh. This menace in fact snatched the status of Larkana as being the city of gardens. Today the area of the Guava gardens is being diminished by and by more so due to the menace of waterlogging being created squarely by the nearby flowing river Indus. The output of the Guava crop has also been effected due to such environmental damage caused to the area. According to the Guava growers their gardens were producing 1000 to 1200 crates per acre previously while at present it is hardly half of it.

But in-spite of all, this unique crop of Sindh still has a great potential of earning valuable foreign exchange provided the government gets alive to it. The growers have suggested to the government to establish the fruit industry of Guava including the Jam and Jelly industry at Larkana for boosting up the product to earn foreign exchange.